Carnival canceled my Cozumel scuba excursion! Any recommendations?

So I just got a lovely e-mail from Carnival saying they canceled my scuba excursion for next months cruise. Anyone have recommendations of a dive shop they have used while docked there. I know there are several to choose from, but I figured I would ask.

My local dive shop uses Aqua Safari when they do their trips and I dove with them in Cozumel before. They were very god.

If you walk through port, and turn left, go a few blocks you will run into the El Cid hotel, there is a dive shop there, but we just bring our snorkel stuff and enjoy a day pass at el Cid, great food, good snorkeling. no boat involved.? I dont know, I would contact El Cid. But we always have a great day there.

There are many dive shops in Cozumel all less expensive than Carnival. You should not pay more than $100 for a 2 tank dive. All you need to do is go to Trip Adviser and look up dive shops with good reviews. We never use Carnival for shore excursions.

We used Scuba Tony. He is a retired cop from California I believe. My husband & son dove with him a few years ago & everything went very smoothly.

Dive Paradise

What time does your ship arrive

How many divers?

Most dive ops boats go out at 7:30-8am. If you arrive later than that, you need at least 4 divers to book a boat usually. Some dive ops will put you on a wait list expecting others to also book from your ship. If you have 4 or more divers, you should be able to schedule a boat for whatever time you pick.

If the dive op (SandDollar most likely) has been canceled with the cruise lines, then there may be quite a few people in same situation. Cozumel reefs are south of all the cruise ship docks, and the best reefs/deeper reefs are 40+ minute boat ride, so with cost of gas, they really do need 4 or more divers in order to go to those reefs.

Dive Paradise is the other large dive op on the island, with the most boats

AquaSafari is a close second

the rest on the island are very small ops with only 1-2 boats, so their boats can fill up quickly

there are 60-80 dive ops on the island like this...small, with only 1 or 2 boats...so if you don't hear back from one, just keep looking

We have been going to Cozumel for 18 years now to dive, never had a bad dive there.

hope this helps!

Sea Robin is the best! Every time we dock in Cozumel we use them. Always less than 8 on our boat.

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Yeah for sure don’t book Scuba through the ship. There are some great reccomendations here.

Consider yourself lucky!

Now find an op that puts you on a fast boat out to the dive site (no hour long slog), only has 8-10 divers in the group (no cattle call on the reef), and let's you dive your own tank (no limited bottom times).

I personally had great experiences with Scuba with Alison (she will wait for cruisers who arrive a later than normal) and Tres Pelicanos (they do an afternoon dive if you miss the morning one). But there are TONS of amazing ops in Cozumel.

Had a great experience with Cozumel H2O last year. Very professional start to finish, and an easy 10 minute walk from the International Pier, or a really short cab ride. I think Carnival docks even closer to the Marina Fonatur, which is where a lot of dive boats including Coz H2O are based.

I've used Eagle Ray divers many times. Much better than the Carnival scuba excursions - small groups, personalized service. Carnival did you a favor!

Janis